Book Description

The moving story of a Midwestern family fighting to preserve their ties to the land and to each other: “Bears comparison to the best work of Steinbeck” (Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong). In the rolling hills of southern Indiana, an elderly couple copes with the fear that their river bottom farm—the only home they’ve ever known—will be taken from them through an act of eminent domain. The river flowing through their land, where the old man has fished nearly every day of his life, may be dammed to form a reservoir. Their son, meanwhile, sinks deeper into troubles of his own, struggling to determine his place in a new romantic relationship and the duty he owes to his family’s legacy. What This River Keeps is a heartfelt novel about what it means to love a place and a family, and the sometimes staggering cost of that love. “Like the best work of Richard Russo, Greg Schwipps lushly creates the depth and breadth of a single community with absorbing detail, a refreshing keenness and lyric kind-heartedness. These are likeable, imperfect people, beautifully drawn, living without pretense in what they want from the world.” —Tom Chiarella, fiction editor of Esquire Magazine